Unfortunate Circumstance
by SkinnyJeans
Summary: Jack meets Kate again in one of the worst circumstances you can imagine can they get over it? Jate!
1. Meeting in Misfortune

Unfortunate Circumstance

_Disclaimer: Don't own Lost. Boo Hoo._

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Chapter 1: Meeting in Misfortune

Great. Today was all he needed. He had trusted Sarah, and she had let him down all over again. Cold-hearted bitch. All she had wanted was the fame and fortune being stranded on a desert island brings, and Jack had been stupid enough to believe she had changed. Now she'd left all over again, taking a rather substantial amount of money with her. At least this time she hadn't gotten away with his heart too. Kate had gotten away with that long before Sarah was on the scene.

Jack sighed as he pulled on his scrubs. It had been almost a year since they had been rescued from the island. At least Kate had been let off. The Australian government didn't particularly want the world to know about their less than ethical research programme on the island, so tthe survivors had been, well bribed. This meant money for most, but in Kate's circumstance, this meant her freedom for her silence. Normally, Jack never would allow this to happen. He would have told the world exactly what happened on that island. About what the 'others' had put them through. About those they had kept as lab rats, and disposed of like yesterdays rubbish. But this was Kate they had been talking about. Like Zeke had said, she was his one weakness. He could still remember the night in the hotel, pleading with the rest of the group to take the bargain, to make sure Kate would go free. Most had agreed with him. Those who hadn't soon did, after a few well placed threats from Sawyer and Sayid. He had done everything to make sure that they could be together. But then she had run. Again.

And he had been left to pick up the pieces, to force himself back into his now widely publisised life, complete with uptown apartment, new job, flash car and fan club. But without Kate, Jack's life seemed to him like an operating theatre, busy and bustling during the day, but at night, cold, clinical and sterile. Empty.

" Dr Shepard?" The nurse poked her head around the locker room door. He suddenly wished that he was back home. He wished he had never offered to cover his friends shift. Jack would usually make any excuse not to saty in his empty apartment, but he hated working in A&E. You were under too much pressure, working against the clock to delay the inevitable. For every life you saved, there would beone you couldn't. A life for a life. It reminded him of the island.

"Dr Shepard?" The nurses voice shook Jack out of his daydream.

"Sorry Nicole. Yes?"

"You're needed in cubicles." Jack stood up, and headed down the corridor in that direction. Anything to get his mind off of her.

" What's the case?" The nurse handed him a file.

" Suspected rape victim." Jack stopped in his tracks.

" Umm, Nikki, in case you hadn't noticed, I'm a man. And in general rape victims prefer women doctors and..."

" All the doctors on call right now are men. Anyway, I've got a police doctor coming in now. I just need you to keep her calm."

"Which ward?"

"Department 108, Ward 15, Cubicle 42."

" Thanks."

Jack made his way to the department. What he saw when he got there shocked him to the core.

The woman was backed away into a corner, arms clasped protectively around her knees. Tears trickled down her face, mingling with the blood pouring from a cut on her forehead. A black eye was already starting to form , and her clothes were torn beyond recognition. That was bad enough. But when the head buried under the matted curls lifted up, and Jack saw the deadness in the jaded eyes, that was when he felt someone had torn out his heart and cut it to pieces.

It was Kate.

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_Okay, Okay people, don't start sending the hate mail and letter bombs just yet!_

_I promise, PROMISE this will have a happy ending! (cross my heart and hope to die!)_

_Anyway, Jack will help Kate get better ect ect ect and I hereby promise you tons of fluffy Jate candyfloss!_

_Anyway, please R & R cos I'm not updating until I have at least 5 reviews. And try to be kind, because I'm not very good at writing intense drama stuff. But constructive critisism would be much approciated, as long as you put a good point at the end of your review ( it makes me and my gigantic ego feel good about myself!)_

_Au Revoir mon Jater amis!_

_SkinnyJeans xxx_


	2. Failsafe?

Disclaimer: Yay! I finally own Lost! No wait sorry, that was just the DVD Box set…

Chapter 2 : Failsafe

Jack was sure that this was just a nightmare. A sick deluded nightmare. Any moment now, he was going to wake up and realise it was just his leftover guilt ganging up on him. All it would take was one count to five, and he would realise that the woman shivering on the floor in front of him wasn't Kate. It couldn't be. It was just his fears playing on him, exploiting the cracks in his battered armour. Counting to five was his failsafe. It always worked. Always.

Yet as he opened his eyes and the image didn't fade, his worst fears were confirmed. It really was Kate, backed into this corner like a wounded animal.

"Kate? Kate, can you hear me?" There was no response. She just stared defiantly ahead of her. Jack ignored the hurt the fact that she ignored him brought, and slipped back into doctor mode. He had hid behind his 'doctor' status for years. It was as if his degree and scrubs were a shield against anything that had the remote chance of hurting him. But looking at the nearly broken woman in front of him, he knew that there was some sense in the idea that doctors don't treat family.

" Kate?" Jack took one nervous step towards the trembling woman. She showed no sign of hearing him. Pushing his feelings to the back of his mind, he ploughed on, his brain on auto-pilot. He carried on doing exactly what his med-school-trained brain told him to do. All he wanted to do was to scoop her up into his arms and tell her that everything was going to be alright. But his brain told his heart that that was one of the worst things he could do right now. He didn't have the power to tell her that everything would be alright. He never had.

" Kate, listen to me, okay?" He knelt down to her level. "It's Jack, okay? You're safe here. No one can hurt you while you're here."

She was soaking wet from the rain outside, and her matted air was plastered to her face. She was still shaking, and Jack knew that whatever she had been through, she had to find some dry clothes quickly. She needed to be examined by a nurse - she could still be seriously injured. But she seemed unaware of all of this. She didn't seem to know what was happening. Or maybe she didn't care. She could be beyond caring.

" Kate, you need to find some dry clothes - you must be freezing." Jack shuffled slightly closer to her, but still kept a respectable distance away.

" Kate, please-" Kate pulled something from her pocket,. It was the toy aeroplane. That damned little plane always seemed to appear at Kate's worst times. When they opened the case, at all the funerals, now. It was like a talisman. It was_ her_ failsafe.

" Kate, please, I'll leave, just do something, anything." What he hated was this indifference. All he wanted was a reaction from her, a chance to hear her voice, to know that Kate was still there, that somewhere inside that shell, was Kate. His Kate.

" Kate..." He reached out...

Kate flinched as his hand collided with her arm. Jack pulled away as if he had been burnt. Stupid idiot...

It had brought Kate out of her trance. Eyes glinting with unshed tears, she turned to face Jack. Her voice, when she finally found it was laden with emotion.

" Don't touch me." The words broke the barriers, and Kate finally broke down in tears.

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Knowing she wouldn't let him comfort her, and that she would not like him to see her like that, Jack turned and fled. When outside, he was horrified to find tears flooding his own eyes as he kicked the door in anger. Who could do this to her? Who could have hurt Kate so much that she ended up like that? 

All Jack knew now was that if he knew, he would break the bastardsneck.

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_Hello again! Fancy seeing you here!_

_Anyway, I hope you like this! Only one or two more chapters and you will get the promised fluff! Please be as kind as you were last time with the reviews - that was the most amount of reviews I've gotten for any one chapter! Yay! Hope this lives up to your expectations!_

_( Constructive Critisism would be good! Just don't be too mean!)_

_From SkinnyJeans xxx_


	3. Everything

Disclaimer: Last time I checked, I didn't own Lost. And I still don't. But if I ever do, I'll let you know.

Jack sat fidgeting in the waiting room. For once he didn't feel the urge to help the hordes of people in the never ending queue that surrounded him. All he could think about was her. The way she had looked at him. The tortured look in her green eyes that had pierced through his soul, wrapping him in guilt.

_My Fault._

He put his head in his hands, as he prayed to a God he really didn't believe in that this was just some sick dream, a nightmare that he would wake up from any second. But as the clock relentlessly ticked on, time passing slower than Jack had ever imagined, this seemed less and less likely.

_It's real Jack. Deal with it._

"Jack?" Jacks head snapped up as after what seemed like an eternity, a nurse stepped out of the examining room. He shakily got to his feet, and wove his way through the crowds towards her.

"How is she? What…" The look on the nurses face cut Jack off. It wasn't good news. She beckoned him into a side office.

"Jack…" The nurse turned to face him. " There's no easy way of telling you this…"

"Just tell me. Quickly." He shut his eyes, knowing what she was going to say before she said it.

_Rip off that Band Aid Jack Shepard._

"She was…" The nurse said it abruptly. "Jack, she was raped."

_The Truth._

Raped. The word rang out through the silence, shattering it like glass. The reality. The cruel truth that he had to wake up to. The life-shattering event that had just brought Kate back to him.

Jack didn't trust his voice. What had some stupid bastard done to Kate? How could someone have done that to Kate? Why?

_You could have stopped this. _

That cruel voice in his head that had continually put him down across his life, the voice that had taken the place of his fathers insults when he died, that voice was right. If he had gone after her, if he had stopped her leaving, if he had for once in his life taken one goddamn chance, this would never have happened.

_It's your fault._

Jack had done this to every woman in his life. Sarah, Juliet, Gabriella, and now Kate. He had vowed to fix them, and instead, had torn their lives apart. Sarah, he had driven her away, he had failed to save Gabriella's father, Juliet had died trying to save them as the Others executed their prisoners. He had promised to save them all. Promises he had broken.

_But she needs you. _

"Jack?" The nurse looked at him. When he made no move to look at her, she spoke again.

"How do you know her? Who is she Jack?"

Who was Kate? She had never been his girlfriend. His friend? He was kidding himself. She had always been more than that.

"She – she…" Jack turned to face her.

"She's everything to me."

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Hey! Firstly, sorry about the very long wait for this chapter (it isn't even very good). Real life got in the way again ( I'm taking my SATS this year, my homework load has more than doubled!). Many thanks to **Lilianabeth **for pushing me to upload.

Please Review!

Next Chapter: Long awaited Jate fluff! I swear!

SkinnyJeans

PS : What is this I hear about a Skate kiss in the Season3 promo? Someone tell me this isn't true!


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